On 30th November, 1875, while the Serapis was on her way from Bombay to Colombo, the Prince kindly presided at a dinner given in honour of my promotion to the rank of commander. In a letter written to me by his Royal Highness some years afterwards, he recalls that festivity, with a note of regret that those jolly days were gone. Three years afterwards, upon the occasion of my marriage, the suite presented me with a most beautiful silver bowl, which remains one of my most highly prized possessions.
There were many Babu poems composed to celebrate the Prince's prowess as a hunter. Among them, I remember the following:—
"Beautifully he will shoot
Many a royal tiger brute;
Laying on their backs they die,
Shot in the apple of the eye."
Seven years afterwards, I visited India again. It seemed to me that in the interval the relations between the Indian and the Englishman had changed for the better; in that the natives were less afraid of the white man, and that a better feeling had grown up between East and West. The principle upon which India is governed is the principle of establishing justice and humanity. India is governed by the sword; but the sword is sheathed.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE EGYPTIAN WAR
I. THE BEGINNING OF TROUBLE
NOTE
The story of the Egyptian war may conveniently begin with an account of the affair of the 9th September, 1881, when Tewfik, Khedive of Egypt, met Arabi Pasha face to face in the Square of Abdin at Cairo, and failed to take advantage of the greatest opportunity of his life. Had he acted there and then upon the counsel of Mr. (afterwards Sir) Auckland Colvin, British Controller, it is possible that the Egyptian war might have been avoided.